‘Whodunit?’ repeated Hutcheson grimly. ‘Who journeyed to the wilds of Wester Ross, to a spot unreachable by road in the winter, needing two boats and a willing helper? Who navigated a landing without a harbour or pier, in full view of a row of cottages, in the middle of a snowstorm, and there killed a lady who was out in her garden in that same snowstorm sans hat, sans coat and in her slippers? And who then departed the garden leaving no footprints, embarked once more in an invisible boat and sailed away? For no reason whatsoever?’ His voice had risen until he was almost shouting.
‘Who?’ I said. I could not imagine what individual, except Mrs Hutcheson, could upset the inspector so.
‘A passing tramp,’ he said, his voice finally falling as he threw himself, exhausted by emotion, into a chair.
‘Passing?’ I said. ‘Passing on the way to where? There’s nowhere to pass to.’
‘What’s this about, Hutcheson?’ said Alec. ‘Did we hear you aright: that the CC of the county has put his stamp on it?’
‘There are eyewitnesses,’ said Hutcheson. ‘They saw an odd-looking chap lurking about earlier in the day. They reckon he got into the house, or at least his dog did, and he lay in wait for Lady Lavinia, who went out to truss up an apple tree that was waving in the wind. I’ve never heard such nonsense in all my days.’
‘Hm,’ I said. ‘Well, it’s not completely at odds with the facts. Cherry and Mitten did report a stranger out on the moor, although they didn’t mention a dog accompanying him. But there was a dog in the house that didn’t belong there. And, strange as it sounds, if there was any woman in the land who would nip out into a snowstorm in her carpet slippers to tie up an apple tree, that woman is – was – Lavinia, Lady Ross.’
‘You don’t say!’ said Hutcheson.
‘No, of course I don’t say,’ I shot back. ‘It’s a pretty story woven from a few incidental facts lying close to hand. They’ve all put their heads together and agreed on a version that suits them. Once they got rid of the four of us, that is. What a cheek. What a blasted nerve! I wonder they managed to keep their faces straight until we were gone.’
‘But why on earth are the Inverness police falling for it?’ said Alec. ‘And with such unseemly haste.’
‘Ah,’ said Hutcheson. ‘The small matter of a public road laid using private funds. Mallory money put that pass through the hills. And another small matter of a public pier built by smashing another Mallory piggy bank. They know what side their oatcakes are buttered.’
‘He … He said all that to you?’ I was aghast.
‘Not him!’ said Hutcheson. ‘I took the chance to find out about the family and their place in the county yesterday, while I was waiting for your return, Mrs Gilver. I half-wondered if there might not be a little convenient looking-away. But I couldn’t have imagined the likes of this!’
‘Well, that’s decided it then,’ I said. ‘I already thought Donald was too young and Mallory was too old. I will not have my son connected to murderers. I shall go to tell his father this straight away and then we shall compose a very stiff letter.’ I frowned. ‘After the letter of condolence, I mean. And a decent interval.’
Hutcheson was looking at me with his eyebrows positively rippling. They looked like two lively caterpillars crossing a pathway.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Condolences,’ he said. ‘And perhaps attendance at her funeral? Would you even go as far as to let the engagement survive long enough for another quiet house party?’
‘Oh, Dan!’ said Alec. ‘I could come along too. And Hugh needn’t kno— Well, I suppose it would be hard to hide it. But Hugh surely couldn’t countenance this travesty of justice. He might be just as keen.’
‘To throw my firstborn son into a den of villains so we can crack a case?’ I said.
‘He can’t jilt the poor girl when her mother’s body’s not yet cold,’ Alec said.
‘You have children, Inspector, don’t you?’ I said. I do not often play the parental card to quash Alec, but these were desperate times.
‘Two boys, like yourself, Mrs Gilver,’ he said. ‘Two fine boys who both did their duty to king and country and came home safe. They’re in the force now, just like me. Fighting injustice wherever they find—’
‘Oh, give it up!’ I said. ‘Very well, I’ll go as far as this. We shall lay it before Hugh and before Donald and, in the event of unanimous agreement, back to Applecross we shall go.’
PART 2
Spring
10
18 April 1935
Hugh, cloaked in righteous indignation as well as a measure of true sorrow for Lady Love’s demise and his usual desire to see fair play, was happy to go along with the plan. Donald – his breast heaving with a sorrow all the greater for its being new to him, young as he was was – stirred to a manly conviction that he must soothe Mallory’s broken heart and dry her tears and that he could only do it by sweeping in like Robespierre and unmasking the serpent. Not that serpents wear masks. I was greatly relieved that his own heart was not broken and that Mallory was uppermost in his thoughts. Teddy was unmoved by the death of a woman older than his mother whom he had met only once, and he did not set such great store by fair play nor by manly sweeping, but he was loath to miss out on all the fun. Likewise Grant, who blithely inserted herself into the roster for attendance at the funeral and would not be denied.
The Dunnochs, however, outwitted us all. Less than a week after Valentine’s Day, when we were still waiting for the black-edged card to arrive, Hugh had spluttered over his coffee at breakfast one morning and shaken his newspaper at me.
‘“The funeral has taken place, privately at her home at Applecross, of Lavinia, Lady Ross, née Mallory, beloved wife of Lachlan Dunnoch, Lord Ross of Wester Ross, mother of the Hon. Miss Mallory Dunnoch and of Mrs Martin Tibball (Cherry). May she rest in peace.”’
‘They’ve made a mistake, surely,’ I said. ‘They meant it to be a death notice and intimation of the funeral and the newspaper office has mixed it up somehow.’
‘Dandy,’ said Hugh. ‘This is the Scotsman. Think what you are saying.’
I nodded. ‘So. They’ve bundled her away,’ I said. ‘Could anything smell fishier?’
Hugh looked down at his plate of kedgeree and grimaced, pushing it from him. We were alone at the breakfast table, as we usually are these days. Donald was over at Benachally, eating his own breakfast, cooked by his own cook, and it was nowhere near time for Teddy to wake.
‘Did Donald know?’ Hugh demanded. ‘About the private funeral?’
‘I can’t imagine so,’ I said. ‘He rushed straight off to his tailor for a new suit, didn’t he? But, equally, he’s been on the telephone to Mallory every day, so I don’t quite see how she could have kept him in the dark.’
‘Not accidentally anyway,’ said Hugh grimly. ‘I absolutely see how she could have lied through her teeth until the deed was done.’
‘Oh, Hugh!’ I said. ‘You can’t suspect Mallory. Surely.’
‘I suspect everyone until they earn their way off my list,’ said Hugh. ‘And you’d do well to follow suit.’
It was the first indication of how deeply Hugh meant to dig into this case. He had tended theretofore to wait on the sidelines finding fault until Alec and I had teed up an easy shot, which he then took. By the time Easter came, in mid-April that year, he was champing so hard at the bit that both Alec and I began to wonder if we should abandon the whole enterprise. Hugh galumphing into the middle of things, alerting our suspects and destroying our chances, would be hard to stomach.
Thankfully, we made the trip to Applecross for the announcement of Donald and Mallory’s engagement in two motorcars, so Alec and I had hours on our own to plot and plan.
Spring had changed the countryside entirely and some of the glens were almost pretty, with blossom on the bent hawthorns, ranks of daffodils nodding in the shelter of the field walls and everywhere a fresh carpet of new grass, upon which the great resurgence of life was pl
ayed out in all its glory. Lambs were wherever one looked. The newborns, tiny knock-kneed creatures, stood wobbling and bleating while the ewes whickered their love and licked the babies clean; little balls of scrubby fluff scampered here and there, testing this new world in which they found themselves before taking fright and huddling into their mothers’ flanks again. Best of all to watch were the sturdy little fellows, full of milk and already beginning to dot their heads down and take nibbles of grass, who were filled with an abundance of energy and such sheer joy at being alive in the sunshine that they rushed around the field as though it were a racetrack, infecting all the other lambs with their exuberance until there was a solid pack of them, stampeding at breakneck speed and bursting out into little explosions of jumping.
Alec leaned against the bonnet of his Daimler watching a lively gang of them while we enjoyed our last cigarette before the final leg of the journey, over the ‘new road’ from the banks of Lochcarron. Bunty was locked inside, for even an angel such as she could not be trusted with spring lambs gambolling. She whined a little and I am sure that had I turned I would have seen her beseech me with enormous eyes. I did not turn.
‘Look at that dark one!’ I said to Alec, pointing. ‘He sprang three feet straight up into the air. Look! Look! There he goes again.’
‘He’s right at the far edge of being adorable,’ said Alec. ‘A few more days of such exercise and he’ll begin to look delicious instead.’
‘Are you practising to talk to the crofters?’ I asked. ‘Or have you been farming so long now that you can’t see this as a landscape any more? You’ll end up like Hugh.’
‘With acres of land in good heart, healthy forest plantings, sound fences, happy tenants and a case full of silver cups from the local show?’ said Alec. ‘There are worse fates.’
I grunted. It often chastens me to be reminded what a good countryman Hugh is. When the reminder comes from Alec it is irritating too.
‘Anyway,’ he went on. ‘I wouldn’t be so crude as to talk of these sheep to the crofters.’
‘What do you mean?’ I dropped my cigarette end and ground it out with the toe of my boot. Then I lifted my face and turned out of the breeze to feel what I was sure was a trace of true warmth in the sunshine.
‘This is cleared land,’ said Alec. ‘I think this might be part of His Majesty’s estate, as a matter of fact. But, in any case, the crofters are long gone from this glen.’
‘Cleared land,’ I echoed. ‘It sounds so innocent.’
‘One of the more ticklish jobs ahead of us is to find out from the Dunnochs whether Lady Love’s bounty to her crofters has survived her death. Cuo bono?’
I nodded. We had talked long into many nights about it. ‘If Lachlan is now free to run the estate on more conventional lines and stop giving such heaps of cash …’
‘But he couldn’t have done the deed from his wheeled chair,’ said Alec. ‘Although Mitten, with an eye on his future prosperity, might have been willing to help.’
‘Any of the Tibballs,’ I agreed.
‘All that said,’ Alec went on, ‘Spencer’s the one I want to get my teeth into.’
‘Why?’ I said. ‘You keep saying that but you’ve never offered a wisp of a motive.’
‘Because there was no reason for him to be there. It was a party for neighbours and he came all the way up from London for it.’
‘Meaning that we would have to go all the way down to London if we were ever to find out why,’ I said. ‘For the next few days, we need to put David Spencer out of our minds and concentrate on the family. If we can satisfy ourselves that they are innocent, then we’ll get him in our sights.’
‘Agreed,’ Alec said. ‘Very well then. Gawping at baa-lambs won’t get us anywhere. Let’s go. I’ll open the door slowly and you grab her collar, Dandy.’
As dreadful as the coal boat had been, I almost missed it as we turned off the low road and began the climb up the bealach na bà. It rumbled along the lochside for a while, then switched sharply, rose, switched again, twined around the side of the hill for a while and finally reared up ahead like the neck of a bucking horse. Alec shifted down into a lower gear and set his teeth grimly. I hung on to the door handle and braced my feet against the floorboards. Bunty, wisely, got down off the back seat and curled herself into as small a ball as she could make behind me.
As we pulled and pulled up to the summit, the spring retreated. There were no blossoming hawthorns up here, nor any daffodils. The green blades thinned and disappeared until the grass at either side of the track was as grey as the rocks that stuck up from the thin soil. More and more of them stuck up, until it was all rock and only a very few tufts of straw-coloured stalks whipping in the wind. Up here, the sheep were still fat and waddling and I was glad to see it, shuddering to think of a lamb being born into such a comfortless world.
At long last, with Alec in second gear and the engine straining, the road levelled and we were teetering on the edge of a dizzying drop, looking out over the bare, brown slopes to blue water and distant islands.
Alec whistled and let go of the steering wheel to shake the cramp out of his hands after gripping so tightly. Then he took an even tighter hold, lifted his foot from the brake and began the descent.
When we arrived at the metalled road that ran along the side of the bay and turned in at the gates to Applecross House, we were astonished to see, helping to untie trunks and cases from the back of Hugh’s motorcar, none other than David Spencer.
Hard on the heels of that surprise came another sight to drive it out of our minds: Lord Ross stood on the doorstep, leaning on a stick to be sure, but with his wheeled chair nowhere in sight.
He told us all about it over tea by the hall fire. Teddy had disappeared somewhere with Bunty but the rest of us were there, trying not to boggle too obviously.
‘It was my birthday present to Lavinia,’ Lord Ross said. ‘It was to be a surprise for her. Me getting out of me chair and walking at her party. We had hoped I’d be able to dance, hadn’t we Dickie, but I wasn’t quite there. Not by Valentine’s Day. I shall dance at your party tomorrow, Mallory. A slow foxtrot. And by the wedding I shall be doing reels again, just like the old days.’
I could not have summoned a polite response for a gold bar and a mink stole. Alec looked equally stunned by this bombshell, and Hugh shot me a quizzical glance. Thankfully, one can always rely on Donald to miss most of the import of what he hears and he answered Lord Ross with cheerful words and a ready grin.
‘That’s good news, sir,’ he said. ‘I came up ready to say I was willing to wait if you thought it was still too soon, but I’m glad to hear you talk about the wedding. We both are, aren’t we Molly?’
Lord Ross looked as surprised at ‘Molly’ as I had been at ‘Don’ but he nodded. ‘It’s been two months,’ he said. ‘And it’s only a few friends and neighbours, not as if we’re opening a London house and dyeing ponies pink. By midsummer we’ll all be ready for a happy occasion, shan’t we?’
‘Are you the only friend who’s made a long trip?’ I said, turning to David Spencer.
He spoke lightly as he replied but there was a glint of steel in his eyes. ‘I’ve settled here, Mrs Gilver. For a while anyway. So, you see, I’m one of the friends and neighbours.’
‘And how are dear Cherry and Mitten?’ I said. ‘And are Biddy and Dickie coming for the party?’
‘Coming?’ said Lord Ross. ‘They’re here, Dandy. They’ll be in for their tea in a minute. Nothing has changed except for the loss of our darling. Everyone else is still here. As before. Everything continues and we have all been of great comfort to one another, I’m glad to say. If my friends had started deserting me I don’t know how I could have borne it. But with them I still have so very much to be happy for.’
That, in my estimation, was something of an understatement. And it skirted very close to the notion that Lady Love had had some scheme in hand that her death had scotched. Thankfully, before I had to drum up an answer, I
recognised the smart clip-clop of Grant’s feet on the stairs and then she swung into view with an enquiring look on her face.
‘I’ve prepared—’ she began, then stopped. ‘Oh, you’re having tea first?’
Mallory flushed and got to her feet. ‘Forgive me,’ she said. ‘I should have thought. Of course, you want to wash and rest. I’m sorry. I still haven’t—’ She took a deep breath and started again. ‘My mother was such an effortless hostess,’ she said. ‘And I’m such a boob in comparison.’
There was a flurry of denials from Lord Ross, Donald and Hugh and in the midst of it I escaped.
Grant and I said nothing until my bedroom door was shut behind me. Then we both exploded into chatter. Grant, having some theatrical training, exploded more effectively and held the floor.
‘I can’t believe it!’ she said. ‘Standing there bold as brass. Large as life! No wonder he took the vapours at luncheon on Valentine’s Day, after Miss Cherry and Mr Mitten saw him out on the moor! What a nerve!’
Grant’s outrage was close to irresistible, but I did my best. ‘I don’t think Lord Ross’s halting steps could be described as “striding out” even now, Grant,’ I said. ‘But otherwise, I agree.’
‘Do you think they told the police that he was only pretending to be crippled and really he was perfectly up to the job?’ said Grant. ‘Did they all know? Did every one of them cover it up?’
‘Too bad if they did,’ I said, nodding. These points were well made. ‘It’s uncovered now. I shall ring Inspector Hutcheson with the news as soon as I can be sure of a quiet moment at the telephone.’
‘And why’s that Captain Spencer still here? That’s very suspicious if you ask me, madam. The whole thing is very suspicious. A party! When I was a girl they’d still be in black crêpe and not even thinking of a grey hat or a purple glove, never mind a party! Do you think they think two months is really plenty of time for mourning before they go throwing parties and dancing the night away? Or do you think they think we think there’s something up?’
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